Welcome to the RIB Joint. A blog discussing science issues with an emphasis on health physics and agnotology.
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Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Letter To Nuclear News Editor

Don't know if it'll get printed or not, but it's in response to the subject of my last blog post.

Dear Editor:

ANS members should be skeptical of any claims which are
contrary to the consensus science on any subject, but particularly on a subject
closely related to nuclear energy. As
most ANS members support nuclear energy, they may be less wary of claims that harmonize
with that view, even when those claims contradict the science.

Similarly, people who support fossil fuel energy are more
likely to be receptive to claims on climatology which support their pro-fossil
fuel bias, even when those claims contradict the science.

In psychology, this cognitive phenomenon is called confirmation
bias. It is something to be avoided, not
promoted.

Unfortunately, Nuclear
News promoted confirmation bias with its coverage of the President’s Special Session: Low Level
Radiation and Its Implications for Fukushima Recovery in the last issue.

The session’s cherry-picked content stands in stark contrast to
the international scientific consensus on the biological effects of radiation.

Yet Nuclear News
described the speakers in these terms:

“All of the panelists, in one way
or another, could be properly termed debunkers of the received wisdom on
radiation exposure, as each presented evidence suggesting that not only are
popular anxieties over radiation overwrought, but that low doses of radiation
can, in fact, provide health benefits when properly administered."

There wasn’t any new
evidence presented in that session that hasn’t been known for years. Nothing has changed scientifically since that
session took place and won’t into the future.
All of the panelists, in one way or another, could be properly termed
deniers of the science of health physics, not debunkers. Similarly, the global warming deniers have
not debunked anything in climatology.

And what was meant by the term “received wisdom”?

The first objective of
the ANS, from its bylaws, is to “to promote the advancement of science and
engineering relating to the atomic nucleus, and of allied sciences and arts.”